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[flagged]

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> People said the same sorts of things when Germany suddenly invaded Poland Hell, look at HN on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. One of the top comments was essentially a dismissal from Kherson edited to an "oh shit."
- krainboltgreene 2y ago
  Putin is a particularly deranged type of fascist though, much like Bush, who is okay making the poor calculation of a Ukrainian invasion for the benefit of a wartime economy. Even German ambassadors in Ukraine were caught off guard having to leave that night. Modi is a different type of beast, he's a long term political power that doesn't need a wartime economy, and is still establishing his internal power. He's going to have to deal with the insane SS brigade he's fostered eventually. Also while Putin and others thought that Ukraine would fall like Afghanistan (quickly), zero people think that Pakistan is going anywhere within this eon. While it's not the graveyard of empires, it's definitely the hospice.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > Putin is a particularly deranged type of fascist though, much like Bush, who is okay making the poor calculation of a Ukrainian invasion for the benefit of a wartime economy While Putin is undoubtedly deranged, I think his goals with invading had much more to do with delusions of grandeur and trying to rebuild the Russian/Soviet empire than wanting the "benefit" of a "wartime economy". Russia was drastically unprepared for a long war, and its economy, heavily reliant on export of raw materials and import of finished goods, has suffered.
    - krainboltgreene 2y ago
      I agree with most of this except maybe the "soviet empire" bit. His recent mentions of it (within the last 3 years) has been about how the fall of the Soviet Union broke up the "historical russian" borders. For Ukraine specifically he compared himself to Russian Czar Peter the Great. A long time ago he lamented the fall of the Soviet Union which is especially hilarious as he was very likely involved in and vultured on the remains of it's demise. > Russia was drastically unprepared for a long war He, much like all of military officials in NATO at the time, assumed it was going to be over after they landed in Kiev. I also contest that the economy has suffered: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-economy-shows-solid-growth-despite-ukraine-war-sanctions-2024-08-28/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-economy-shows-s... The only exception is the pipeline, but then who could have expected that the US would sabotage an ally's ability to heat it's citizens? (assuming you ignore the last 100 years of american doctrine)
      - WillPostForFood 2y ago
        4.6% growth, 10% inflation, and interest rates at 21% is not great.
        jajko 2y ago
        But its far from bottom of how much general russian population is willing to suffer before next bloody revolution happens. I don't talk about wealthy educated people from moscow or st petersburg (at least those that didn't leave), they are on purpose less targeted by whats happening, but rather permanently subjugated populations from poor regions whose lives changed comparatively little compared to cold war. Prigozhin had a last real chance, you could see how much common folks and most of army immediately aligned with them. But when they took hostages whole families of his mercenary group leaders, they backed down with predictable results. Interestingly not all aligned generals were executed, I expected bigger purge. Maybe he would be much worse though.
        krainboltgreene 2y ago
  - graemep 2y ago
    Putin is not a fascist. He is a Russian nationalist/imperialist dictator. Far more like Catherine the Great than like Hitler or Mussolini.
- IAmGraydon 2y ago
  You can only edit for a maximum of 2 hours on HN, so not sure how that happened.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > You can only edit for a maximum of 2 hours on HN, so not sure how that happened Because in two hours it went from being "mostly overstated," Ukraine being "not economically strong enough to participate in a war" for a long duration and that Russia being "not interested either," to holy shit the mad king is mad.
    - vesinisa 2y ago
      Ukraine was not and still is not economically strong enough for war. It just suffered an unprovoked invasion by its neighbor and had no option but to either capitulate or fight. I hope I am not biased but it really does not seem comparable to the border situation in Kashmir where both sides are showing aggression towards each other and weighing the costs of going to an all out war.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Ukraine was not and still is not economically strong enough for war. It just suffered an unprovoked invasion by its neighbor and had no option but to either capitulate or fight The Western consensus about the outcome of the invasion that of a rout. > both sides are showing aggression towards each other and weighing the costs of going to an all out war Outside an Indo-Chinese land war, the only paths for industrial war emerge from New Delhi. Either in reacting to a miscalculation by Islamabad. Or because India's going imperial. The latter would be shockingly like Russia invading China in both scale and capacity to get drawn out by outside backers.
        fakedang 2y ago
        If India's going imperial, why would Pakistan bother with hosting terrorist elements to provoke a hostile "belligerent" (according to you) neighbour, and letting them attack a civilian zone? Indian leadership hasn't been going on TV prior to the Pahalgam attack and putting out bellicose statements like Hindus and Muslims can't live together - Pakistan did. Also India isn't stupid to invade a nuclear armed country with a first-use policy. The above incursions are the usual dance we see with India and Pakistan (and China), that we see every few years. Except this time, Pakistan triggered it by attacking civilians, just like 26/11, while even Indian support of Pakistani terrorists such as the Balochistan Liberation Army has never led to a large-scale slaughter of civilians in Pakistan. Pakistan messed up big time, they'll chalk up the L, it will be a few tense words for some time, and then things will get back to where they were before.
- HideousKojima 2y ago
  That's because we'd seen "Russian invasion imminent" every year since the annexation of Crimea. It got to be very boy who cried wolf.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    A lot of people have learned exactly the wrong lessons from the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Making people complacent with repeated false alarms is more likely the intended outcome than a failure. When I was in school, one of the history teachers spent a lot of time describing how the Yom Kippur War started. I guess he thought it told something important about how things work in the real world. The lead up to the Russian invasion looked pretty much the same. An ordinary person could not have known if the invasion would actually start this time. But a reasonable person should have understood that if an invasion was about to start, that was what it would likely look like.
    - chgs 2y ago
      > A lot of people have learned exactly the wrong lessons from the Boy Who Cried Wolf Never tell the same lie twice?
      - ben_w 2y ago
        Or https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/habit https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/habit
  - benterix 2y ago
    This is actually a known tactics. I remember in the 90s thieves often did similar things like triggering an alarm on a parking lot every night. At first many people were alarmed and went down to check on their cars. But after a few false alarms nobody cared. It was then when they started to steal.
  - matkoniecz 2y ago
    For start Russia invaded Ukraine and continued war in eastern regions. Russian invasion was not imminent, it was ongoing. And for full scale invasion: there were a clear signs of it before it happened.
- hshdhdhj4444 2y ago
  The competition to Putin entering Ukraine is obviously ridiculous. Putin had already attacked multiple countries before. Georgia, Chechnya, and leads a vast network of para militaries that are fighting all over Africa as well. Heck, Putin had literally attacked and conquered a whole area of Ukraine itself not even a decade ago. Anyone who was saying Putin would not attack Ukraine either had no knowledge at all about how Putin operated or was willfully misleading. India has shown no such imperial intentions that Putin has demonstrated and spoken about multiple times both before and since his attempt to take over Ukraine.
  - navane 2y ago
    I agree with you now, but I also remember everyone, all kinds of experts, saying Putin is just postering. I think it's important to remember that. It is important to note when things are not normal. Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move. Unfortunately, we as people are very good at rationalizing after the fact "oh of course this was coming", shrugging our shoulders and just moving on as if nothing happened. "It is what it is, this too shall pass".
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      > Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move. Was it? The scale was surprising, but troop build ups were noted ahead of time and Russia had been fighting in Ukraine for many years. Am I misremembering?
      - megous 2y ago
        Yes, even Russian soldiers were surprised when they were suddenly marching to Ukraine. Buildups were happening repeatedly in the past under the guise of exercises. Eg. here tanks and ~80k soldiers in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-military-buildup.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russ...
      - anonymars 2y ago
        Very much so. The Biden administration was sounding the alarm, loudly, and the general vibe was, "well that wouldn't make any sense, there goes America crying wolf again like Iraq" Here was one example: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-wrong-intelligence/32275740.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-... See also: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont-believe-in-war-with-russia-distrust-west https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont...
nblgbg 2y ago
"I understand your skepticism, but realistically, I don't see the case. Pakistan is in a very bad situation. The U.S. has cut off a lot of funding over the past decate. They were on the verge of bankruptcy a couple of years ago, and China bailed them out.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  New proxy war between US-aligned India and China-supported Pakistan? My understanding is that China and India don't tend to get along politically.
  - pmontra 2y ago
    China and India are still formally at war since the 60s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War and there is an ongoing dispute over territories in the east of India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute The latter still makes the news in the West sometimes, not every year. HNers from those countries might give us some insights about how much their people feel it important.
    - nindalf 2y ago
      For what it's worth, China has had past or current border disputes with every neighbour of theirs. They have issues with India, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, to say nothing of Taiwan. The ridiculous nine-dash line they've come up with contravenes international law and basic common sense. If you meet an asshole in the morning, you're unlucky. If you meet nothing but assholes all day, you're the asshole.
    - Symmetry 2y ago
      My wife is from China and when I ask her what people there think of the India/China border disputes she says that people aren't aware of them.
      - 2y ago
pfannkuchen 2y ago
"suddenly" Poland refused to negotiate on a land bridge to East Prussia and a compromise on Danzig governance because daddy Britain said they didn't have to. Germany's brutality was not justified, but it's not as if it happened suddenly.
- adamnemecek 2y ago
  It is sudden as it was an overreaction.
  - pfannkuchen 2y ago
    Are all overreactions sudden? Man A is pushing man B repeatedly and yelling at him as a bar dispute escalates. Man B pulls out a gun and shoots man A. Overreaction? Yes. Sudden? Not necessarily.
    - orwin 2y ago
      Man B push around man A, insult him, poke him. Man A ask him to stop. Man B pulls out a gun and shoots man A. Here, ftfy. Poland saw what what Germany did to Czechoslovaquia, decided that negotiations would only happen after a demilitarization and de-escalation. But it's true it wasn't sudden, poland was preparing for the war, the attack from both side (cooperation between Germany and Russia) is what took them by surprise
      - pfannkuchen 2y ago
        Hold on, nowhere did I say that A and B corresponded to the Germany/Poland situation. You are putting words in my mouth. I was strictly illustrating a counter example to the implied notion that overreaction implies suddenness. To further demonstrate that this is a misunderstanding on your part, it wouldn’t even make sense for me to have A and B correspond to the Germany/Poland situation - that would make my argument circular! It isn’t very kind to take an interpretation that would set the speaker’s argument as circular, when an alternate and trivially-demonstrated-as-more-valid interpretation is also available. I believe the advice is often stated as - assume good intent. On your second point - this is an elementary school tier interpretation of history. Poland itself did not have anywhere close to sufficient leverage to make such decisions about delaying negotiations. They were able to do so solely due to Britain’s backing their decision with force. Why did Britain back them? Why do you believe the history book written by the winners so easily on a topic so fuzzy as motive?
SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
And if it turns out next month that India has a secret plan to conquer Pakistan and split it with Iran, that will be similarly concerning. I’m extremely confident that’s not the case.
dyauspitr 2y ago
Yeah but if you’re a part of the region you know India is not stupid or expansionary. No Indian is really worried about this turning into a full scale war.
- pm90 2y ago
  I wouldn’t be so sure. It is easy for the tit-tat to spiral out of control. Any kind of military skirmish is very concerning… we should stop the fighting while we still can.
  - arjun1296 2y ago
    [dead]
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Many of the people I know in India are worried. Nobody likes it when missiles get launched.
aucisson_masque 2y ago
That's different, Germany used fake death of German soldier to justify an invasion of Poland. India is bombing Pakistan, Pakistan is shelling India, but so far no army invaded another country. Beside both Germany and Poland didn't have the atomic weapon.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  It's worrying that the world is progressing to "nuclear states attacking each other". Like two cowboys who both have revolvers, getting into a bar fight.
  - aucisson_masque 2y ago
    By all means, it's a miracle we didn't have a nuclear disaster during the cold war. It went very very close. If it weren't for mens like Vasili Arkhipov, who disobeyed direct orders to launch a nuclear torpedo against ships of the United States Navy, and the many other men during different incidents, we would be all dead. What is frightening is that we, the humanity, keep going that close from our death by atomic warfare over and over, yet make no adjustment whatsoever. I'm no expert but when I went close to dying a few too many times on my motorbike, broke a few bones, etc.. I was smart enough to realize you can't cheat statistics. At one point I wouldn't be lucky and there wouldn't be a second chance to save me, so I stopped driving recklessly. On the other hand, the number of nuclear weapons didn't decrease, there are more actors now involved, and the kind of fantasized Pakistani and indians nuthead are really frightening. I don't think there would be a Vasili Arkhipov over there, they're completely nuts.
mcmoor 2y ago
History isn't only WW2. There's a lot of situations with high tension that doesn't explode into war. One big proof is Cold War not ending in human annihilation. Also 19th century Concert of Europe is entirely built on diplomatic finesse to prevent greater conflict.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  It's an artifact of education. Everyone is taught about a handful of big famous wars, but it doesn't really give an understanding of international relations. It's actually a bit dangerous.
- JeremyNT 2y ago
  It's the exception that proves the rule. Things look stable until they aren't. There are enough "tense diplomatic situations" happening all the time, and given a long enough timeline eventually some will fail and end in disaster.
HPsquared 2y ago
That war involved external parties though. Who are the external parties here who would want to get involved?
rayiner 2y ago
War is universal in human history and most of them don’t turn into World War II. centuries of unique circumstances went into World War II.
nonethewiser 2y ago
>People said the same sorts of things when Germany suddenly invaded Poland, which rather famously spiraled into World War 2 The analogy isnt a great fit. Germany hadn't previously invaded Poland (and vice-versa) many times leading up to that point. A missile strike and an invasion are on completely different levels.
dang 2y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43911692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43911692.

[flagged]

> People said the same sorts of things when Germany suddenly invaded Poland Hell, look at HN on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. One of the top comments was essentially a dismissal from Kherson edited to an "oh shit."

krainboltgreene 2y ago
Putin is a particularly deranged type of fascist though, much like Bush, who is okay making the poor calculation of a Ukrainian invasion for the benefit of a wartime economy. Even German ambassadors in Ukraine were caught off guard having to leave that night. Modi is a different type of beast, he's a long term political power that doesn't need a wartime economy, and is still establishing his internal power. He's going to have to deal with the insane SS brigade he's fostered eventually. Also while Putin and others thought that Ukraine would fall like Afghanistan (quickly), zero people think that Pakistan is going anywhere within this eon. While it's not the graveyard of empires, it's definitely the hospice.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sofixa 2y ago
  > Putin is a particularly deranged type of fascist though, much like Bush, who is okay making the poor calculation of a Ukrainian invasion for the benefit of a wartime economy While Putin is undoubtedly deranged, I think his goals with invading had much more to do with delusions of grandeur and trying to rebuild the Russian/Soviet empire than wanting the "benefit" of a "wartime economy". Russia was drastically unprepared for a long war, and its economy, heavily reliant on export of raw materials and import of finished goods, has suffered.
  - krainboltgreene 2y ago
    I agree with most of this except maybe the "soviet empire" bit. His recent mentions of it (within the last 3 years) has been about how the fall of the Soviet Union broke up the "historical russian" borders. For Ukraine specifically he compared himself to Russian Czar Peter the Great. A long time ago he lamented the fall of the Soviet Union which is especially hilarious as he was very likely involved in and vultured on the remains of it's demise. > Russia was drastically unprepared for a long war He, much like all of military officials in NATO at the time, assumed it was going to be over after they landed in Kiev. I also contest that the economy has suffered: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-economy-shows-solid-growth-despite-ukraine-war-sanctions-2024-08-28/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-economy-shows-s... The only exception is the pipeline, but then who could have expected that the US would sabotage an ally's ability to heat it's citizens? (assuming you ignore the last 100 years of american doctrine)
    - WillPostForFood 2y ago
      4.6% growth, 10% inflation, and interest rates at 21% is not great.
      - jajko 2y ago
        But its far from bottom of how much general russian population is willing to suffer before next bloody revolution happens. I don't talk about wealthy educated people from moscow or st petersburg (at least those that didn't leave), they are on purpose less targeted by whats happening, but rather permanently subjugated populations from poor regions whose lives changed comparatively little compared to cold war. Prigozhin had a last real chance, you could see how much common folks and most of army immediately aligned with them. But when they took hostages whole families of his mercenary group leaders, they backed down with predictable results. Interestingly not all aligned generals were executed, I expected bigger purge. Maybe he would be much worse though.
        krainboltgreene 2y ago
- graemep 2y ago
  Putin is not a fascist. He is a Russian nationalist/imperialist dictator. Far more like Catherine the Great than like Hitler or Mussolini.
IAmGraydon 2y ago
You can only edit for a maximum of 2 hours on HN, so not sure how that happened.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > You can only edit for a maximum of 2 hours on HN, so not sure how that happened Because in two hours it went from being "mostly overstated," Ukraine being "not economically strong enough to participate in a war" for a long duration and that Russia being "not interested either," to holy shit the mad king is mad.
  - vesinisa 2y ago
    Ukraine was not and still is not economically strong enough for war. It just suffered an unprovoked invasion by its neighbor and had no option but to either capitulate or fight. I hope I am not biased but it really does not seem comparable to the border situation in Kashmir where both sides are showing aggression towards each other and weighing the costs of going to an all out war.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Ukraine was not and still is not economically strong enough for war. It just suffered an unprovoked invasion by its neighbor and had no option but to either capitulate or fight The Western consensus about the outcome of the invasion that of a rout. > both sides are showing aggression towards each other and weighing the costs of going to an all out war Outside an Indo-Chinese land war, the only paths for industrial war emerge from New Delhi. Either in reacting to a miscalculation by Islamabad. Or because India's going imperial. The latter would be shockingly like Russia invading China in both scale and capacity to get drawn out by outside backers.
      - fakedang 2y ago
        If India's going imperial, why would Pakistan bother with hosting terrorist elements to provoke a hostile "belligerent" (according to you) neighbour, and letting them attack a civilian zone? Indian leadership hasn't been going on TV prior to the Pahalgam attack and putting out bellicose statements like Hindus and Muslims can't live together - Pakistan did. Also India isn't stupid to invade a nuclear armed country with a first-use policy. The above incursions are the usual dance we see with India and Pakistan (and China), that we see every few years. Except this time, Pakistan triggered it by attacking civilians, just like 26/11, while even Indian support of Pakistani terrorists such as the Balochistan Liberation Army has never led to a large-scale slaughter of civilians in Pakistan. Pakistan messed up big time, they'll chalk up the L, it will be a few tense words for some time, and then things will get back to where they were before.
HideousKojima 2y ago
That's because we'd seen "Russian invasion imminent" every year since the annexation of Crimea. It got to be very boy who cried wolf.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  A lot of people have learned exactly the wrong lessons from the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Making people complacent with repeated false alarms is more likely the intended outcome than a failure. When I was in school, one of the history teachers spent a lot of time describing how the Yom Kippur War started. I guess he thought it told something important about how things work in the real world. The lead up to the Russian invasion looked pretty much the same. An ordinary person could not have known if the invasion would actually start this time. But a reasonable person should have understood that if an invasion was about to start, that was what it would likely look like.
  - chgs 2y ago
    > A lot of people have learned exactly the wrong lessons from the Boy Who Cried Wolf Never tell the same lie twice?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Or https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/habit https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/habit
- benterix 2y ago
  This is actually a known tactics. I remember in the 90s thieves often did similar things like triggering an alarm on a parking lot every night. At first many people were alarmed and went down to check on their cars. But after a few false alarms nobody cared. It was then when they started to steal.
- matkoniecz 2y ago
  For start Russia invaded Ukraine and continued war in eastern regions. Russian invasion was not imminent, it was ongoing. And for full scale invasion: there were a clear signs of it before it happened.
hshdhdhj4444 2y ago
The competition to Putin entering Ukraine is obviously ridiculous. Putin had already attacked multiple countries before. Georgia, Chechnya, and leads a vast network of para militaries that are fighting all over Africa as well. Heck, Putin had literally attacked and conquered a whole area of Ukraine itself not even a decade ago. Anyone who was saying Putin would not attack Ukraine either had no knowledge at all about how Putin operated or was willfully misleading. India has shown no such imperial intentions that Putin has demonstrated and spoken about multiple times both before and since his attempt to take over Ukraine.
- navane 2y ago
  I agree with you now, but I also remember everyone, all kinds of experts, saying Putin is just postering. I think it's important to remember that. It is important to note when things are not normal. Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move. Unfortunately, we as people are very good at rationalizing after the fact "oh of course this was coming", shrugging our shoulders and just moving on as if nothing happened. "It is what it is, this too shall pass".
  - lostlogin 2y ago
    > Putin actually invading Ukraine was a very unexpected move. Was it? The scale was surprising, but troop build ups were noted ahead of time and Russia had been fighting in Ukraine for many years. Am I misremembering?
    - megous 2y ago
      Yes, even Russian soldiers were surprised when they were suddenly marching to Ukraine. Buildups were happening repeatedly in the past under the guise of exercises. Eg. here tanks and ~80k soldiers in 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-military-buildup.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russ...
    - anonymars 2y ago
      Very much so. The Biden administration was sounding the alarm, loudly, and the general vibe was, "well that wouldn't make any sense, there goes America crying wolf again like Iraq" Here was one example: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-wrong-intelligence/32275740.html https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-invasion-predictions-... See also: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont-believe-in-war-with-russia-distrust-west https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/why-ukrainians-dont...

nblgbg 2y ago

"I understand your skepticism, but realistically, I don't see the case. Pakistan is in a very bad situation. The U.S. has cut off a lot of funding over the past decate. They were on the verge of bankruptcy a couple of years ago, and China bailed them out.

BLKNSLVR 2y ago
New proxy war between US-aligned India and China-supported Pakistan? My understanding is that China and India don't tend to get along politically.
- pmontra 2y ago
  China and India are still formally at war since the 60s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War and there is an ongoing dispute over territories in the east of India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute The latter still makes the news in the West sometimes, not every year. HNers from those countries might give us some insights about how much their people feel it important.
  - nindalf 2y ago
    For what it's worth, China has had past or current border disputes with every neighbour of theirs. They have issues with India, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, to say nothing of Taiwan. The ridiculous nine-dash line they've come up with contravenes international law and basic common sense. If you meet an asshole in the morning, you're unlucky. If you meet nothing but assholes all day, you're the asshole.
  - Symmetry 2y ago
    My wife is from China and when I ask her what people there think of the India/China border disputes she says that people aren't aware of them.
    - 2y ago

pfannkuchen 2y ago

"suddenly" Poland refused to negotiate on a land bridge to East Prussia and a compromise on Danzig governance because daddy Britain said they didn't have to. Germany's brutality was not justified, but it's not as if it happened suddenly.

adamnemecek 2y ago
It is sudden as it was an overreaction.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  Are all overreactions sudden? Man A is pushing man B repeatedly and yelling at him as a bar dispute escalates. Man B pulls out a gun and shoots man A. Overreaction? Yes. Sudden? Not necessarily.
  - orwin 2y ago
    Man B push around man A, insult him, poke him. Man A ask him to stop. Man B pulls out a gun and shoots man A. Here, ftfy. Poland saw what what Germany did to Czechoslovaquia, decided that negotiations would only happen after a demilitarization and de-escalation. But it's true it wasn't sudden, poland was preparing for the war, the attack from both side (cooperation between Germany and Russia) is what took them by surprise
    - pfannkuchen 2y ago
      Hold on, nowhere did I say that A and B corresponded to the Germany/Poland situation. You are putting words in my mouth. I was strictly illustrating a counter example to the implied notion that overreaction implies suddenness. To further demonstrate that this is a misunderstanding on your part, it wouldn’t even make sense for me to have A and B correspond to the Germany/Poland situation - that would make my argument circular! It isn’t very kind to take an interpretation that would set the speaker’s argument as circular, when an alternate and trivially-demonstrated-as-more-valid interpretation is also available. I believe the advice is often stated as - assume good intent. On your second point - this is an elementary school tier interpretation of history. Poland itself did not have anywhere close to sufficient leverage to make such decisions about delaying negotiations. They were able to do so solely due to Britain’s backing their decision with force. Why did Britain back them? Why do you believe the history book written by the winners so easily on a topic so fuzzy as motive?

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago

And if it turns out next month that India has a secret plan to conquer Pakistan and split it with Iran, that will be similarly concerning. I’m extremely confident that’s not the case.

dyauspitr 2y ago

Yeah but if you’re a part of the region you know India is not stupid or expansionary. No Indian is really worried about this turning into a full scale war.

pm90 2y ago
I wouldn’t be so sure. It is easy for the tit-tat to spiral out of control. Any kind of military skirmish is very concerning… we should stop the fighting while we still can.
- arjun1296 2y ago
  [dead]
saagarjha 2y ago
Many of the people I know in India are worried. Nobody likes it when missiles get launched.

aucisson_masque 2y ago

That's different, Germany used fake death of German soldier to justify an invasion of Poland. India is bombing Pakistan, Pakistan is shelling India, but so far no army invaded another country. Beside both Germany and Poland didn't have the atomic weapon.

HPsquared 2y ago
It's worrying that the world is progressing to "nuclear states attacking each other". Like two cowboys who both have revolvers, getting into a bar fight.
- aucisson_masque 2y ago
  By all means, it's a miracle we didn't have a nuclear disaster during the cold war. It went very very close. If it weren't for mens like Vasili Arkhipov, who disobeyed direct orders to launch a nuclear torpedo against ships of the United States Navy, and the many other men during different incidents, we would be all dead. What is frightening is that we, the humanity, keep going that close from our death by atomic warfare over and over, yet make no adjustment whatsoever. I'm no expert but when I went close to dying a few too many times on my motorbike, broke a few bones, etc.. I was smart enough to realize you can't cheat statistics. At one point I wouldn't be lucky and there wouldn't be a second chance to save me, so I stopped driving recklessly. On the other hand, the number of nuclear weapons didn't decrease, there are more actors now involved, and the kind of fantasized Pakistani and indians nuthead are really frightening. I don't think there would be a Vasili Arkhipov over there, they're completely nuts.

mcmoor 2y ago

History isn't only WW2. There's a lot of situations with high tension that doesn't explode into war. One big proof is Cold War not ending in human annihilation. Also 19th century Concert of Europe is entirely built on diplomatic finesse to prevent greater conflict.

HPsquared 2y ago
It's an artifact of education. Everyone is taught about a handful of big famous wars, but it doesn't really give an understanding of international relations. It's actually a bit dangerous.
JeremyNT 2y ago
It's the exception that proves the rule. Things look stable until they aren't. There are enough "tense diplomatic situations" happening all the time, and given a long enough timeline eventually some will fail and end in disaster.

HPsquared 2y ago

That war involved external parties though. Who are the external parties here who would want to get involved?

rayiner 2y ago

War is universal in human history and most of them don’t turn into World War II. centuries of unique circumstances went into World War II.

nonethewiser 2y ago

>People said the same sorts of things when Germany suddenly invaded Poland, which rather famously spiraled into World War 2 The analogy isnt a great fit. Germany hadn't previously invaded Poland (and vice-versa) many times leading up to that point. A missile strike and an invasion are on completely different levels.

dang 2y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43911692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43911692.